


Sand Under Our Feet, Stars in Our Eyes

by ALC_Punk



Category: Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-01-11
Updated: 2009-01-11
Packaged: 2017-11-27 01:16:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/656414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ALC_Punk/pseuds/ALC_Punk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No one talks about the old hermit and his wife. Alternate universe, branching off from the prequel trilogy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sand Under Our Feet, Stars in Our Eyes

**Author's Note:**

> I'm going to state this right now: I know next to nothing about prequel canon. I know next to nothing about Amidala and Obi-Wan, from that time. What I do know has been A.j.'s ramblings and gleeful commentary on the two (and vague memory of some whiny dies of a broken heart woman in a refrigerator from the third prequel which I did suffer through). Not to mention my extreme distaste for the three prequel movies. _I do not care how canon this is_. In reality, this is A.j.'s fic, though it took a different turn from my original intent--it's not a happy story. (I also do not care about accent marks, and yes, Captain Stannis is a horrible steal)

No one talks about the old hermit and his wife. Mostly because talking about them is boring, since all they do is be quiet and reserved in company. They wander the desert, they eke out a living in the sand, and they avoid contact with most people they see. Life on Tatooine isn't exactly easy and most people are more interested in their own farms than in a man and his silent wife. Even if she once was beautiful.

She's gotten used to sand being everywhere, almost finds something comforting in her dry skin and the way the winds tug at her hair if she leaves it hanging too long. The droid cut it for her, before they left Coruscant, but it's grown in again, and she thinks she'll make him cut it, this time.

Neither of them likes to dwell (because it would be stupid) on what has been.

The wind has worn him into a craggy-faced man, the hollows in his cheek a product of the desert sun and not a lack of food. Her own skin is slowly shifting from soft and pale (and sometimes she hates it and wants to go back to her palaces and diplomatic sanctions and baths and creams that made her scented and polished) to something dark and leathery. Ben (he calls himself that--or Qui-Gon did) teases her about becoming a street urchin. But at night, his hands trail along her skin and she wonders if he misses what was.

She doesn't ask.

There aren't children, of course--not that she was ever sure she truly wanted any, but she can't see bringing them up in a world like this. It's almost ironic when the news is passed across the desert about the new family of settlers. A couple and their tiny nephew, eking out a living on their farm.

Being here, with him, is easier than being surrounded by a court of millions. Or so she tells herself.

When the years begin passing at a faster and faster rate, she doesn't complain, exactly. She knows, as he knows, that this will not end well. Their lives were written long ago, and while she's worked hard to resist, she understands that the fate of the universe is at stake, and in the long run, she doesn't exactly matter. But she still loves him, and she still wants him to live.

A part of her wishes desperately that she could have been there for her children. But a larger part of her knows he would have been able to find them. Adopting them out, and setting things into motion was all that she could do.

She misses politics and the Senate, sometimes misses being something other than the old hermit's wife. On those days, he avoids her. They won't fight, but it's sometimes hard to look each other in the eye, knowing what they could have had. Knowing what they, together, set in motion.

Days like that, he hears rumors of sandpeople on the move and tracks them to blaster holes in a distant valley. She's always careful not to attract the wrong kind of attention, and no one looks twice at a sandperson shooting wildly at rocks. Most miss the careful precision of each shot.

On some days, he's the one who wanders, disappearing for long enough that she doesn't bother with dinner and sips tea into the small hours, fingers restless. Sometimes, she writes. Long, coded entries in a diary no one will ever read. Most of it's lists of things she'd like to be doing, places she's once been.

She doesn't miss the elaborate clothing, though it was once such an integral part of her life.

The weight of fabric isn't something that strains her muscles anymore, so she strains them in other ways. Jedi training exercises she teases him into showing her, and boxing moves that Organa once taught her when he thought her an adorable girl-child. The martial arts she knew as a protected Princess and Queen feel strange in the desert, though she does them anyway, when she feels the urge.

When the things they don't talk about become too big, there's always an argument. It depends on what sets it off for how long it lasts. She's stormed out more than once at his intractableness, and he once slammed the door on his way through the back room.

Sometimes, it takes days for either to acknowledge that neither is right, but once they do, there's a feverish frenzy to get to the point, to reaffirm that this is _right_ , that though they hurt more than themselves, the alternative would have been utter destruction. Some days, hearing distant reports of the new Empire, they both know that could be a lie.

When the boy shows up, she's in the tiny hydroponics garden they started out of desperation. She comes through the door, hearing him babble wildly to Ben, and watches as he plays part of the message. The hair and carriage are unmistakable and she slips into their bedchamber to change.

The clothing comes from the bottom of their chest, slightly musty with disuse, though it's only been a few months since she last threw him around on the sand. It still fits, the leather protection and distraction both. Her hands she cleans before braiding her hair up and out of the way. The blaster and ancient communicator go in a pouch on her belt.

Both of them look surprised when she strides into the room as the message plays fully for the first time. At the end, she half-smiles, "I still have contacts on Alderaan."

Her husband meets her eyes and an hour-long argument passes in seconds before he turns away with a slight frown and a sigh. "You never could be convinced to stay in your own sphere."

"You never understood there is no boundary," she glances at the boy, seeing her own eyes staring back at her, and smiles slightly, "I'm glad you came for us. One day--" but she can't say that. Dropping a story of an entire life on someone so young isn't fair. Not all at once. She moves and leans down to kiss Ben. "I'll meet you at Alderaan, if not before."

His hand brushes her cheek, "Don't make promises neither of us can keep."

The sense of dread that sometimes grips her in the deepest nights slides along her spine, but she ignores it. "If you meet her, tell them..."

"Tell them yourself."

"Now who's making promises?"

He laughs softly, then turns to the boy, "Luke, I think we should return to your uncle's farm. From there, who knows what will happen."

She has always ever been herself, even as a hermit's wife, and she finds amusement in the lack of questions from the denizens of Mos Eisley. Two freighter captains in, she finds her woman, settling for a price that wouldn't have been beyond the well-known ports of Naboo. Here on Tatooine, it's practically robbery, but there hasn't exactly been a lot to spend money on, in the desert.

No one recognizes her, on Alderaan. She wasn't expecting them to, Coruscant might be a problem, though. More people there are still around from the old days, though they were never Senators and ambassadors. 

She only makes one wrong turn, but blames that on her lack of familiarity with the city more than her reluctance to see an old friend. It's not as though he's hard to find, and his secretary is laughably easy to walk past. 

Organa is slow to understand who she is until she smiles at him in amusement, and the lightening of her eyes is enough. She's getting caught up to speed with current galactic politics when something slams into her mind. Some horrible sensation, as though she's going to die or claw her skin from her hands. Organa doesn't even get to ask her what's wrong before she's out of his office, running, remembering too many ways in and out of the system. And too few places to hide them all.

The freighter captain already has the engines running when she gets there, and Padme doesn't ask why. Doesn't care, either, as they're off and heading for atmosphere when the report comes in of some _thing_ detected coming in-system.

Padme clenches her hands on a console, and tells the ship to move faster.

They barely break orbit when the space station fires, a sight they can see on a rear monitor before the feedback from the weapon fries half the ship's systems and the explosion of the planet sends them tumbling end over end.

"What the hell can do that?" the captain asks, after they've spent three hours putting the ship into some sort of working order. A third of the systems are still fried, but they're space-worthy enough for a few more days. The problem will come when the atmosphere scrubbers need to be replaced. Somewhere in the distance, the space station is still lurking, as though waiting for something. None of them are eager to get near it.

"I don't know," Padme says, and the words aren't really a lie. Just because she can recall ancient blue-prints that detailed planet-destroying weapons doesn't mean that's where the empire got its technology.

Her words aren't enough for the captain, there's still something suspicious in her gaze. And Padme realizes that there's no point in delaying the inevitable. The stakes have changed. It takes the truth of her identity and Captain Stannis' XO being a friend of an old contact to get a lead on the Rebellion. She should have known the captain was more than she said.

She should have known some would still look for her, despite the danger that the Vader or Palpatine would discern their intent. The XO was a terribly young boy, who was still angry about her abandoning her responsibilities. Padme didn't try to explain, she simply accepted his help. In a way, after all, he was right. She wondered for a moment how things would have gone for Alderaan if she hadn't--

Having convinced the captain she's not around to betray anyone to anything, Padme steps off a shuttle onto Yavin IV too few (and yet too many, for the fate of the universe) hours after the destruction of Alderaan by a force she still can't quite comprehend.

Mon Mothma meets her two steps inside the base, and Padme wonders how that conversation went for Stannis. Most of the guards have weapons loose, waiting for the order to shoot what could be a spy for the empire. "You always did enjoy the drama of a good entrance," is all Mothma says before she turns, sweeping towards an inner door.

A smile brushes over Padme's face and she follows, wondering at what she's gotten herself into. The conversation that follows--more a dancing around ideas and actual issues than an exchange of ideas--is interrupted when Padme feels something cause her blood to freeze. It's like falling suddenly from a great height and she collapses into a chair, suddenly feeling every moment of her years. It's not the same dread she felt on Alderaan, it's something worse, something soul-shaking. 

_I'm sorry..._ His voice brushes against her mind, then is gone, and she clenches her hands into fists before taking a steadying breath and getting back to her feet.

"They're coming," she tells Mothma, "And I need a shower. We can continue this later."

She hasn't forgotten everything about command. Two guards trail her to the basic facilities of the pilot barracks where she strips and lets the shower wash everything into the drain. It's the first time she's felt truly clean in two decades. There's no more sand under her nails or heat stripping moisture from her skin.

The battered freighter arrives as she's detailing some of her theories about the weapons' system of the space station to one of Mothma's technicians. When the schematics from the R2 unit are reviewed, she discovers she was wrong about some of them.

It's the boy who tells her, awkward and sorrowful, about the fall of Ben (she had to stop thinking of him as Obi-Wan long ago, as he stopped calling her Princess and Queen). She's been expecting it, but it still makes her hands clench and her eyes close.

Unfortunately, if she knows Vader (she can't think of him as Anakin now), there isn't time to mourn. One of the teams finds a tracker on the underside of the _Falcon_ and she hates being right. The space station could reach them before they find a weakness and she lets Mothma press her into service, organizing the evacuation of all non-essential equipment and personnel while the pilots and Leia Organa (seen from a distance, and it still makes her breath catch) plan the hastily put-together attack on the Death Star.

Waiting with the others as the attack commences is a little familiar. The tension and adrenaline sending her pulse pounding, and she misses being in charge, even as she doesn't miss sending men and women to their deaths.

After the destruction, after the cheers and awards, after people are done smiling and beaming and feeling like they have finally won this war, reality sets in again. Padme spent the time quietly making sure the rest of Yavin was packed up, and that they had an exit strategy worthy of a Jedi.

The old hermit would have been proud, a thought that only makes her wince a little. She's going to break, at some point, but it can't be now.

Princess Organa approves the plans, looking at her for a moment as though she's familiar and then dismissing the thought. Conversation between them is stilted and formal, the princess not knowing where Padme stands, and not knowing who she is. As for Padme, she's fairly certain the bald truth won't accomplish anything at the moment.

Half the rebellion gathers at a new rendezvous, and Mon Mothma corners Padme, demanding she join them.

"We need your mind and your service to the cause." Underlaying the matter-of-factness is a bitterness that lays the blame for things being what they are at Padme's door.

She can't exactly step back from that responsibility. Not anymore. She still continues to pack the few belongings she's acquired over the past week, "Staying won't help. You don't need a member of the old senate, you need new blood. Leia--" her throat closes a little and she coughs to cover it, bending down to scoop up the pair of slippers that had found their way to her tiny quarters.

"We need every person we can get, with Alderaan gone."

That's a low blow, but Padme shakes her head, the shot going wide. She's lucky Mon Mothma doesn't have all of the tools to string her up. They might come in time, but she's not going to part with them yet, "Leia," she repeats, head coming up and eyes clear, "Is more than capable of stepping into her father's shoes and you know it."

"Her experiences on the Death Star--"

"Seasoned her," Padme says, tone clipped. She's got a fairly good idea of the sorts of things Leia experienced. She's no innocent, and the empire can be ruthless when it wants the truth. "I watched her, at Yavin IV. She will survive. Especially with Luke and Solo around." Not that Leia would want to hear that she needed anyone much less a smuggler and a farm-boy. But princesses couldn't be choosers.

At least they weren't a farm-boy and a smiling Jedi rogue.

"Besides," she continued, tugging the tie on her pack closed, "I'm more use to you out there, and you know it."

Mon Mothma's mouth twists, and her head tilts to the side, "You would make an admirable figurehead, here."

"Yes, the figurehead that dropped out of sight and happened to appear as the rebellion was threatened with extinction? You know as well as I the coincidence is too much for far too many people." Padme's hands want to clench, but she remains calm, letting them appear serene and loose. "And Ackbar is far more suited to this game of hero than I ever was."

"Are you running, Amidala?"

The accusation makes her laugh, just a little. And then her hands _do_ clench. "I've never stopped."

And she misses the desert, though that won't be where she goes. She's telling the truth about working for the rebellion. She's let things slide too much, let too many years pass--though maybe that's a good thing. There are people she still knows, remnants of her old life she can pull upon--Stannis' XO is a place to begin. It won't be much, but even the empire had to start small.

"Will you tell them before you go?"

Mon Mothma was always an intelligent woman, and the shot hits the mark this time. Padme's head comes up, and her voice crackles with too much emotion when she replies, "Now is not the time." She's always dreamed of the day she could, though. But she knows in her belly this is wrong, the same way she'd known about Ben before Luke told her.

"Don't come the Queen with me, Amidala, it's a valid question."

"They don't need the complication--the rebellion doesn't need the complication." She can feel the stiffness of her spine, the way her bones stiffen in a way they haven't since she stood on the Senate floor, speeches falling effortlessly from her lips.

"And that's a matter for you to decide?"

"Yes." She slung the small satchel over her shoulder, feeling the tang of salt and blood where she'd bitten her lip.

"Stubborn as always." There's almost affection in Mon Mothma's gaze now.

"Would you have me change my stripes?"

"No."

For a moment, they're younger, two women who knew each other in another capacity, who had survived the shoals of politics but hadn't been shaped by the riptides of the empire. Padme hugs her for an instant, impulsive as she used to be, then steps back. "Don't let the rebellion fall without me."

"Don't go looking in the desert for answers you already have."

There's something curiously right about those words, but Padme doesn't reply as she leaves. There's a freighter leaving, her old friend Captain Stannis at the helm. She's got a list of contacts and possible places to gather information they can use.

Maybe it will come out right in the end.


End file.
